


Unfamiliar Waters

by Janice_Lester



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:00:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janice_Lester/pseuds/Janice_Lester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karl's single and back in LA to film <i>Trek 3</i>.  Zach offers him a place to crash, and things proceed very nicely from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfamiliar Waters

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "tentacles" square of the "inhuman" card for [](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[kink_bingo](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/)'s April mini-challenge. Features sex involving a tentacled human. There is a brief mention of a death by suicide, in the context of a discussion about past lovers. Characters use drugs but don't engage in sexual activity while intoxicated.

Karl simply doesn’t tell agents and directors, interviewers and publicists, co-stars and casting people that three of his great-grandparents were sea monsters. That’s just not the kind of thing these Hollywood types professionally need to know, right? It doesn’t affect his ability to adopt the expected accent, demonstrate impeccable comic timing, or survive six weeks of shooting fight scenes with Bruce Bloody Willis.

It isn’t anyone’s business except his own. It isn’t even Natalie’s business anymore, she’s made that clear enough with the whole separation/divorce/swanning-off-with-half-Karl’s-money deal. So now he has a promising career, a _new_ damn dream house in progress in Ponsonby (yeah, so he said he’d never live in Ponsnobby, but if Natalie’s keeping the house in Herne Bay he figures the original two million dollar suburb isn’t big enough for them both), good access to his kids when he can squeeze in time in Enzed between shoots, no one to pester him to take the rubbish out first thing in the morning when he’d really rather leave it ‘til next week (what are sheds for if not to store smelly things?), two shiny cars he can’t drive at once but can’t bear to part with, and an echoing rented two-bed in Parnell. Just him and his tentacles. Natalie kept the dog.

So it’s a relief when Wednesday rolls around and he can skip the shave, pull on his favourite disreputable jeans that fit again now that he’s lost the _Dredd 2_ weight (he vaguely remembers picking them up from an Op-shop somewhere in the Hutt back in his varsity days, so they’re practically antique), step into his comfiest sneakers, pop next door to give old Mrs. Finch the key and alarm code for his place just in case, then return for his cases and head for the airport.

It’s a long flight, but it’s a long flight in business class. The food’s almost worthy of the name, even if he’s always suspicious of anything claiming to be meat which you can actually cut with a disposable plastic knife, and Karl reads scripts or dozes most of the way. There isn’t even the occasional embarrassment he’s experienced in the past, with one of his own movies being in-flight entertainment (it’s one thing to sit in the theatre with an excited preview audience; it’s quite another to watch your seat-mate squirm when he recognises that the guy doing all that eyebrow-wielding onscreen is sitting beside him dressed like a wastrel and wearing the wrong accent).

LA is hot. Once, in his younger days, he’d expected that eventually it would start to feel like home. Nowadays, he’s travelled so much that even home doesn’t feel like home until he’s been there a couple of months and is almost due to leave again. Places are just places. There’s something to dislike in all of them if you look too hard. But people? The right people can make the worst place worthwhile. And that’s why, even though he’s jet-lagged and not really feeling all that sociable, he makes an effort to get to the cast reunion party just as soon as he’s cleared Immigration (“Yeah, I’ve got that paperwork right here… Thanks… You bet I will!”) and caffeinated (“What do I mean, ‘Long Black’? Um, basic espresso-type-thing. An Americano? Okay, fine, sounds good.”).

The taxi driver seems to know the way, which is good because Karl’s found there’s only so many cities he can keep accurately mapped out in his head, and LA seems to have largely given way to Berlin thanks to the film they wrapped there a month ago. Still not sure what that one’s going to be called. The fake/working title _Washington Monument Zombie Attack_ certainly isn’t going to cut it, and Karl’s no lawyer but he thinks there might be lawsuits if they try to brand it with the obvious _Grindr: The Gay iPhone Killer_. Anyway, they pull up outside a nondescript building that seems to house two restaurants and a naughty bookshop. Karl’s brain won’t process his vague memories of American tipping etiquette, so he just randomly overpays note by green note (why must all denominations of American paper money look like twenties?) until the driver looks happy. Apparently he does fine, because the driver is kind enough to exit the vehicle to help him haul his baggage into the appropriate restaurant.

“Thanks, mate,” Karl says, and then remembers that he has to drop the ‘mate’. _Man. You can say ‘thanks, man’, and that’ll be fine_. He’s too tired for this. His brain’s full of Berlin and polite things you say in German when a stranger’s been nice to you. “Have a good one.”

The taxi driver grins like he’s some weird specimen of outer space life, and waddles back to his car.

Karl’s just telling the maître d’ who he is and why he’s here when two bundles of overwhelming enthusiasm come bounding up to embrace him.

“Karlee!” Zach cries, touching their foreheads together.

“Hello, Karl,” Zoe says.

“Hiya, Z-people. Which one of you’s got your hand on my arse?”

Neither one seems prepared to admit the infraction, but the hand is promptly withdrawn.

“So glad you could make it,” Zoe says. “Come and sit down. You look—”

“Like shit,” Zach puts in.

“Like you’ve had a long flight,” Zoe corrects.

“Well, you’re both right.”

Karl allows himself to be escorted to a table, where he’s promptly squeezed in between Zach and a distinctly drunk-looking Simon Pegg, whose eyes cross slightly when he tries to focus on Karl for their handshake.

“The beer is good, I take it, Simes?”

“The beer is—” Pegg pauses to belch daintily behind his hand “—unfortunately, American, but, on the other hand, it’s cold and wet and alcoholic. Welcome back, by the way. Long flight?”

“No longer than usual.”

“Did they feed you?” Cho wants to know. “We should feed him.”

“They do the most amazing all organic pizza here—”

“Shut up, Quinto,” Pine says, wandering in from parts unknown. “The pizza here is mediocre at best. Now, the meatballs—”

“Don’t talk to me about meatballs—”

Someone puts a beer in Karl’s hand and he decides to get lost in it, to let the conversation seep into his pores, to reacquaint himself with this group and its particular energies by osmosis rather than effort.

LA. He’s back. Rejoice.

***

They have him booked into some flash hotel, but Karl isn’t sure he’ll stay longer than a night or two. Zach and Chris both offered their spare rooms, and either would probably be a lot better for him than the luxurious impersonality of a hotel room. For now, though… it’s taking a minute to confirm that his iPhone has figured out where it is and found a network to use, making sure his phone, wristwatch, and room clock all agree, setting an alarm, taking a piss, and falling face first into dreamland.

***

The round-table read-through goes well, despite the fact that Karl isn’t the only one who’s cold. Third flick in the franchise’s new era, and they’re still being miserly with the script access.

Spock and McCoy have an interesting little moment, a lot of quippy banter without the usual dash of McCoyish xenophobia the scene would undoubtedly have had if it was part of the original _Trek_ series. Zach doesn’t have his ears on, but he’s in full Spock voice. And yet he makes the scene _flirty_ , and it’s just impossible not to respond to that. Karl’s half expecting to be told off by JJ afterwards, but what he gets instead is a pat on the back and a “good to have you back again” (“Fucking likewise! I heard awful rumours that you were out and we were going to get M. Night!”).

Zach offers to drive him wherever he’s going, and Karl thinks _yeah, okay, fuck it_. He’s blowed if he wants to spend any more evenings wallowing in his post-divorce loneliness.

“If the offer’s still good, I’d love to collect my gear from the hotel and move into yours.”

Zach grins, easily making the right turn out of the lot. Karl blinks and reminds himself that over here right turns are the safe and easy ones. “You’re not worried I might try to seduce your newly-single self?”

“You’re not worried I’d let you?”

Zach glances sideways at him, then studiously returns his attention to the road.

***

After nine days in Zach Quinto’s spare room—which is also, apparently, Harold Quinto’s preferred lounging and tongue-bathing area—Karl finds he is actually kinda disappointed that Zach hasn’t, in fact, attempted to seduce him.

So, being a direct sort of bloke, he says so, after presenting Zach with a cooked breakfast for the third day in a row. (Zach can sleep fifteen minutes longer and still make his ridiculously early call if some handy other person produces his daily plateful of “anything remotely nourishing that goes with coffee, Karl, I don’t actually become capable of pickiness until I’m properly awake.” Karl likes to cook for other people, if not for himself, so it works out well, really. If you don’t count the part where _he_ has to get up three hours earlier than his call to do it, that is.)

“Huh,” Zach says. “Please repeat that after I have inhaled this delectably caffeinated beverage.”

Karl sits, tapping his fingers on the back of the dining chair he’s straddling, and watches pale, stubbly semi-Spock drink with those piercing eyes closed in apparent rapture. “I guess I make good coffee, then,” Karl muses.

“No, I’m just pathetically easy.”

“I see.”

Zach takes a last gulp, swallows, sets down his empty mug with a click. Looks at Karl. Raises what’s left of his left eyebrow.

“I’m disappointed you haven’t tried anything on,” Karl repeats. “Is it the newly-divorced thing? Or I’m just not your type?”

“Oh, you’re just about everyone’s type, Karl, darling. Actually, it’s the straight thing.”

Zach thinks he’s straight? “Oh,” Karl says. Then brightens. “So if I regale you with tales of all the men I’ve been with, we’re sweet?”

“All right,” Zach says, with a greatly (and fakely) put upon sigh, “if your tales are suitably entertaining, I will condescend to let you blow me.”

“So kind.”

“I am.”

“And you have to have the last word, don’t you?”

“So it would seem.”

Karl grins as he gets started on his own mug of coffee.

So that’s how, after a long day at the office mainly standing around in the back of scenes wearing blue and looking worried, Karl finds himself sharing the contents of whatever they call a tinnie in Hollywoodland with Zach. It makes up into a nice enough joint, anyway, whatever the locals call the actual quantity. So they sit on the back porch steps and smoke, and when Karl tells the story of his first, deeply unpleasant attempt at a blowjob at the tender age of sixteen Zach doesn’t laugh. And when Karl tells him about Jesse, the surfer dude he met on one of his first film sets who fucked him so gently his first time, then taught him to take it harder and better, and died at his own hand a few years after they amicably parted ways, Zach makes unhappy noises and slings an arm around his shoulders.

“Wasn’t all bad,” he’s keen to reassure Zach between puffs, “my adventures in the gay sex. I got heaps of mileage out of the Rider of Rohan thing. I could just walk into a club and have guys begging me to fuck ‘em. Pretty sweet deal.” He hands the joint back.

“You like topping?” Zach asks, like it’s a matter of merely academic interest.

Karl shrugs. “It’s all good, really. I like all the basic stuff. Never quite made it to the masterclass with men. Did with women, though. Anyway, met Natalie in ‘04 and that was that for the freaky man fun.”

“Until now.”

“Until now. I’ve missed it, I really have. But, if we’re gonna, then there’s something I should tell you.”

Zach sighs and hands back the now severely depleted joint so he can interlock his fingers behind his head and lean back on the steps. “Is this going to be the not-looking-for-anything-serious speech or the I-have-herpes speech?”

Karl chokes on his surprised laughter. “Nah, mate. It’s the I’m-anatomically-unusual speech.”

“Anatomically unusual,” Zach repeats. “I take it you don’t mean in the _surprise! I have a ginormous cock!_ way.”

“No, more in the _several of my recent ancestors were sea monsters, and as a result I have tentacles_ way.”

“Oh,” Zach says. “That.” It’s a surprisingly long time before he double-takes, but when he does it’s a beauty and Karl’s hard pressed not to roar with laughter. “So, er, where, exactly, are these tentacles?”

“ _Exactly_ where you think, mate.”

“Oh.” Zach puts the roach to death on the concrete slab below the last step, then thinks better of it and collects it up for flushing. “I’m insanely curious now. Or at least, I’m sure I would be were I not so mellow.”

“Understood.”

“Therefore, we obviously _must_ snuggle until we are sane and sober enough to discuss this like adults.”

So that’s how they end up, half dressed, sprawled the wrong way across Zach’s bed chilling the fuck right out for the rest of the evening. Well, night, really. They worked quite late and they have an early start and Karl is really, truly, not going to manage _chipper_ over breakfast.

***

It’s a long, frustrating day, and Karl knows just from the tension in the car as Zach drives them home that they’re going to do something short and _un_ frustrating just about as soon as they get in the door.

He’s not the one to start it, he’s the one who’s just shutting the door when Zach decides to push him against the nearest vertical surface and start right in with the kissing and grinding. He smells of the moisturiser they put on after the make-up removal cycle, tastes vaguely of coffee, feels warm and solid and surprisingly strong. Which Karl likes. Definitely. Fills him with the delicious friction that is the conflicting urges to submit and to battle for dominance. He’s just about to remind Zach about how he’s supposed to be allowed to blow him when Noah comes trotting up to make it clear that he’d like his dinner. And walkies. Now. Karl ducks his head and groans into Zach’s neck. It’s been so _long_ and he needs it so fucking bad he feels like he could _cry_.

The sudden arrival of Zach’s decidedly unbashful hand on his bum cheers him up somewhat.

“Hey,” Zach says, “why don’t you go shower? I’ll feed Noah and then see if I can’t mollify him with a quick game of fetch in the backyard.”

“Don’t forget that other fur-ball of yours, will you?”

“Couldn’t if I tried.” He pulls Karl’s head up for one last, hard kiss, and Karl gives it gladly.

***

Karl’s jumpy and anxious in the shower, more than half expecting Zach to invite himself in and not sure he wants the guy’s first meeting with the tentacles to be full-on, full-frontal, in-your-face. It’ll be a new experience for him—he surely would have mentioned it if he’d been with another rare tentacled someone before—and new experiences tend to be sexier paid out slowly. If his tentacles were Christmas presents, best to wrap them up with tissue paper _and_ wrapping paper _and_ that shiny ribbony stuff all wrapped around and tied in a bow.

But Zach doesn’t come in, doesn’t even knock on the door, and Karl’s left alone to dry himself, wrap up in a big fluffy bath sheet, and pad back to his room for his favourite old-man-style tartan pyjamas before wandering out to find Zach.

“I always did like that chest, Urban,” Zach purrs, from his bed where he’s sitting, legs crossed at the ankle, wearing reading glasses and holding a glossy magazine in precisely the way a man does when he’s trying to hide an erection.

Karl, of course, can’t manage anything so casual, not in pyjamas with no magazine handy and with three tentacles as well as one penis just getting started on their best attention-seeking behaviour.

“It’s not wonderful,” Karl says, running a hand over the area in question. “I’ve never bothered really toning it up like Pine’s cohort all seem to do.”

“That’s half the appeal,” Zach says. “It’s just this side of unbelievable. You’re the boy next door, if someone’s very, _very_ lucky. I firmly believe that Alex O’Loughlin _has_ no next-door neighbours.”

“Nice to know where I stand.”

“You stand in my doorway, apparently. Where would you rather be?”

As is probably intended, the first answer that pops into Karl’s head is obscene. Rather than speak it, he steps into the room, closes the door against visiting four-legs, then crosses to the bed and crawls up it until he can push the magazine away and take its place on Zach’s lap.

The first kiss is gentle, teasing.

The second is more fun.

The third is deep and fast and draws up a loud moan from somewhere in Karl’s stomach, as if this is something he’s been longing for half his life and not realised it. Zach’s long fingers explore his torso, press into muscle and the little bit of fat he can hide but not lose, tweak at his nipples until he has to growl and close his teeth over Zach’s lower lip.

“Sensitive,” Zach breathes, in between kisses.

“Sex-deprived.” He’s pathetically grateful for how easily the other man’s shirt buttons give way beneath his trembling fingers. And, oh, boy, speaking of nice chests… Zach’s not the bulkiest guy, looks slender on screen, but he’s a big man with a wiry strength Karl can feel beneath his palms. And all that chest hair just makes him want to explore every texture Zach’s got on offer, to rub his face and lips and cock and tongue and hands and feet all over him, get lost in the feel and the scent of him. God, how long since he’s been with someone who smelled like this? Too long. Too. Bloody. Long.

“You used my shampoo,” Zach observes.

“Oops.”

“So we could stop now and people would still think I’d had you.”

That makes Karl growl again. “Don’t you dare stop, Quinto.” Perhaps it's in response to his desire to add some kind of “or else” to that, but one of his tentacles chooses that moment to pop up behind the waistband of his PJs and out to freedom.

Zach doesn’t notice immediately. Not until he realises that Karl, whose hands are planted firmly on his chest, is somehow contriving to tickle his stomach. Karl watches him very carefully, breath held, for a reaction.

“Huh,” Zach says, actually pushing Karl back from him a bit to get a better look. “It’s sort of scaly. Is it delicate? May I touch?”

“Yeah. They’re, uh, pretty much like fingers. The sides aren’t really sensitive, but the tips, those little suckers—” he turns the tentacle so Zach can see better “—are a bit more responsive.”

Zach slides one hand along the twelve inches or so of tentacle from where it pokes out of Karl’s pants to where it’s hovering in the air between their chests. When Karl makes the tip curl around a stroking finger, playfully capturing it, Zach grins and pretends they’re shaking hands.

Something taut and unpleasant in Karl’s chest begins to relax and melt away. “Not scared?”

Zach kisses him, a quick loud smack of lips. “You’ll have to try harder than that.” Another kiss, more thoughtful this time. “Actually, it’s exciting. A unique experience.”

After that, it’s so easy to take the leash off the boys, let the other two come out to play. Demonstrate just how good their little suckers are at grasping things. Like the waistband of Zachary Quinto’s slinky grey yoga pants. Which Karl’s tentacles pull down until his briefs become visible, and tentacle number one slips in to deal with that, and all of a sudden out pops Zach’s erection so fucking _jauntily_ that by rights it should have had some amusing sound effect to trumpet its grand entrance.

“I, uh—” Karl licks his lips “—I think I remember what to do with that.”

Zach raises a mutilated eyebrow. Then he reaches into Karl’s PJs to find a plaything of his own. “Ooh,” he says. “Uncut. I like. So that was a no, on the herpes?”

Karl’s neck burns hot. “Yeah. I got tested after Natalie left, and there’s been no one since. All clear. And yourself?”

“Same. Well, if you substitute ‘Justin’ for ‘Natalie’. So, now that we’ve dealt with that minor unpleasantness, I propose a nice relaxing round of 69. Do I hear any objections from the floor?”

“You most definitely do not.”

So that’s how Karl finds himself with a mouth full of cock for the first time in years. And it’s even better than he remembers it, not just the emotional high of _I have a cock in my mouth_ but the physical sensations, too. He’s heard people insist that no one actually enjoys performing fellatio, but fuck ‘em, Karl-Heinz Urban most certainly fucking does. And having Zach, who’s clearly not remotely out of practice, lazily taking Karl’s own cock down deep… well, it’s pretty much heavenly. Well, if they’re allowed to have sex in heaven, anyway. And Zach’s balls, oh, God, he loves balls, big and soft and—

Zach has parted his cheeks and is tickling his hole. Which is awesome and brings back a flood of good memories. Karl moans around his mouthful and sucks harder, encouraging. One of his tentacles leaves Zach’s hair to find and stroke the back of his hand instead, and there’s an instant of surprised stillness before Zach takes it in stride and gets on with the job.

Karl comes first, and doesn’t feel any great need to beat himself up over that. It’s been a long time, and Zach really fucking knows what he’s about. Karl does his best to keep up the stimulation throughout, and he must be doing okay because soon enough he’s groaning at the tang of semen. He’ll never understand how he can dislike the taste and yet want to keep tasting it. He swallows greedily, sucks gently until Zach’s hips shift away a fraction, then releases his dick with a pop and a last little kiss to the head.

“Good?” he croaks.

Zach turns around so he can hug-pounce him, grinning. The kiss that follows is as languid as it is dirty. The boys sneak around to curl possessively over Zach’s buttocks.

“We’re definitely doing that again,” Zach says, and laughs, all simple joy and ease.

***

Karl strides onto the set next morning like he owns the whole damn world, and doesn’t care who knows he just broke his dry spell. If anyone asks for details, he’s just planning to smile his most mysterious smile and not answer, and he knows without having to be told that Zach won’t confirm or deny anything to anyone without Karl’s say-so. His good mood seems to make the day go faster, helps him get through the gruelling fight scenes with Pine at his shoulder (he’s getting too old for this action movie shit. Then again, he thought that after _Red_ but he still hasn’t quit ‘em), facing off against seemingly endless hordes of purple-skinned aliens mostly played by stunt people so Kirk and Bones can fling them about a bit. It’s arduous work and he often wonders if a fake fight isn’t more painful than a real one, if you add up all the smaller aches and muscle strains and bruises that build up over thirty or forty or fifty million takes. But he’s in good humour, and it seems to be catching.

And then what clouds there are part: they’ve reached the point of the sequence where Spock strides in and proceeds to save the day almost single-handed despite the six heavily-armed redshirts backing him up (all of whom survive the scene, which Karl’s not convinced is at all faithful to Roddenberry’s vision). He’s just so perfect and stoic and beautiful and Karl has to tell himself very sternly that, no, those ears should absolutely _not_ be licked, they’d taste terrible and the cost of replacing them would probably be taken out of his pay. His tentacles twitch hopefully, the horny bastards, and Karl has to quell them before something gets caught on camera which would take a shitload of explaining.

“Guys?” asks a surprisingly perceptive Pine after they break for the day, looking from Karl to Zach and back again. “Something I should know?”

Karl just smiles. Zach raises an eyebrow, clears his throat, and remarks that he needs to get to make-up to be de-eared.

***

They have an early night, like the old men they are. Well, sort of. There’s a fair bit of fun stuff before the actual sleeping starts which would be pretty impressively gymnastic for your average elderly couple. Then again, great-grand-father Dirk and great-grandmother Gabi had still been fully capable of swimming the English channel, in winter, in world record time, well into their second century. Of course, they’d been sea monsters, so perhaps that was unremarkable. Karl wasn’t sure, he hadn’t really known them that well. And Oma Hannelore had been so determined to pass as an ordinary human being every day of her life that she actually brewed and mixed her own special make-up products to give her wizened features to disguise the fact that, eighty years after moving to her tiny mountain village, she still looked as youthful as ever. So, yeah, Karl doesn’t know all that much about his non-human inheritance, but he’s also not sure it’ll matter much, anyway. His half-monster grandparents hadn’t lived ridiculously long lives, and his quarter-monster father didn’t even have natural swimming ability, so maybe it isn’t all that important. Anyway, he’s too tired to think straight right now, as he nuzzles happily into Zach’s side, embraces him with arms, legs, and tentacles, and lets those soft snores lull him towards Morpheus…

***

“That is unbelievably weird,” Zach says, the first time Karl takes up the offer to fuck him with tentacles. All three together, they’re still narrower than a cock, but of course they’re flexible and capable of moving independently. Karl goes to town, experimenting with all kinds of undulations and flexings and such like.

“Good weird or bad weird?”

Zach groans and hides his face in his arms a moment. “Spectacularly pleasurable weird. You’re going to spoil me for other men, Karl Urban.”

Karl’s actually not altogether sure he’d feel guilty about that.

***

“I’m not in love with you,” Zach says, two months later, while they’re preparing to go back out for the after-after-wrap party. “But I like this. It’s good. Promising. Not to mention tentacularly incomparable. I want you to stick around, or, failing that, come back soon.”

Karl’s smile is shy, but warm. “I’d like that. We should compare schedules.” Zach is off back to New York soon to do some artsy play, and Karl’s off to Vancouver next to do a turn as a serial-killing anti-hero with a heart of gold (right when he was starting to feel comfortable in LA again). He’s not sure it’ll do his career any good, but the script makes him itch to prove that it’s possible to play that part without chewing on the scenery or channelling Tony Hopkins. “And you’re welcome to pop by Auckland for a visit some time. I’ll show you the sights.”

Zach’s gaze falls to Karl’s crotch. “Oh, I do love it when you show me the sights,” he says.

Clearly, they are going to be fashionably late for the party.

***END***

  



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